Legendary Canadian punk band D.O.A. is back — big time

Legendary Canadian punk band D.O.A. is back in the music game in a serious way, their ire freshly fuelled by frontman Joey ‘Shithead’ Keithley’s recent experience in provincial politics.

In 2013, Keithley made an unsuccessful run for the NDP nomination in the suburban Vancouver riding of Coquitlam-Burke Mountain, where he and his wife reside.

“Came close,” he said in a phone interview from the tour van. “I lost by five votes. Basically I got interfered with by the party because they didn’t want someone with an opinion running. They would prefer a potted plant in that particular area.”

The outspoken 58-year-old musician, father and indie-label exec hasn’t ruled out trying again in 2017, but for now the DOA farewell tour has morphed into a comeback journey.

“I figured it was time to tell people it’s not a farewell tour anymore. We’re full-on DOA mode again,” he says. “After I was unceremoniously defeated, I realized I had not forgotten how to play my guitar or how to sing or how to write songs or how to get up on stage and kick ass.”

A teenager who wanted to be a civil rights lawyer, the Burnaby-born Keithley saw punk rock as way to combine his sense of injustice with a desire to make some noise, and rage against disco at the same time. The band’s original lineup included the killer rhythm section of Chuck Biscuits on drums and Randy Rampage on bass.

“When DOA started out, we wrote to change the world, and fight against stuff like racism, sexism, greed, warmongers,” Keithley says. “I look around 36 years later, and I see basically the same things are still very prevalent on our planet. That’s really the reason DOA is still going and I think, still will go.”

The godfather of Canadian punk already has a legacy that includes umpteen D.O.A. studio albums, three live records, a bunch of compilations and two books. Keithley is also the principal of Sudden Death Records, the D.I.Y. label he founded in 1978 to put out the band’s recordings. It’s still going strong, with more than two dozen artists on the roster.

Keithley and the current D.O.A. lineup, consisting of Paddy Duddy on drums and Mike Hodsall on bass, have also started work on their 16th studio album, due for release next spring. It will be followed by a world tour that will take them through Canada and the U.S., as well as South America, Europe and Asia.

There’s no title or concept yet for the upcoming album, but fans would be surprised if it didn’t contain songs inspired by Keithley’s most recent political foray.

“Maybe (the theme) could be lack of honesty,” muses Keithley, comparing his political strategy to the 1939 film classic, Mr. Smith Goes to Washington. “The one honest guy goes there and calls it as he sees it, that’s my approach. I think people would totally respect that because, in large part, that’s not what’s happening.”

In other D.O.A. news, the popular Eastern Ontario brewery Beau’s is paying tribute to the influential punks with the crafting of a potent malt liquor called Hardcore 8.1 The beer is named after the seminal 1981 D.O.A. album, Hardcore 81, except in this case, 8.1 refers to the alcohol content.

“I had a couple of them and two was enough before my English turned into gibberish. It kicked my ass,” says Keithley, who’s no beer snob. “I like beer and I’ve had my share over the years. This one was really good and didn’t have a horrible aftertaste.”

On the home front, Keithley and his wife are watching their three children, aged 27, 24 and 18, move into adulthood. The oldest is pursuing post-graduate studies, the middle one works at a brokerage and the youngest has a band and goes to film school, reports their proud dad.

The Keithley offspring never really got into hardcore punk rock, despite their dad’s efforts to introduce them to the genre. “My daughter sort of got into punk a bit when she was 16, and liked blink-182,” Keithley says. “But after a while, she came up with the ultimate statement that only a teenager could say: ‘You know, Dad, I think your band’s pretty cool except for the fact that you’re in it.’”

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